Armageddon MUD General Discussion Board

General => Code Discussion => Topic started by: James de Monet on March 20, 2014, 01:33:01 AM

Title: Armageddon Player Tools and Utilities
Post by: James de Monet on March 20, 2014, 01:33:01 AM

(I moved these posts around a little, to put all the links at the top!) Main link:

The Armageddon Tools Page (http://armageddontools.searchlightsj.com/)

Okay! I have gotten approval from staff to publish the link to the website where I uploaded all my Armageddon utilities/tools. I think some of these might be really useful to people. Here is a short rundown of the stuff that's on the site, in case you, like me, don't really click on links unless you know they lead to something that interests you:

New Player TutorialThis is an interactive video tutorial that I made to help acclimate new players both to the specifics of Armageddon and the Zalanthan environment, and to the MUDs in general. It is still under (semi) active development, and has some issues, but staff have said they would check it out, so if you guys also want to try it and leave your feedback here, it would be appreciated!

sDesc GeneratorThis is exactly what it sounds like. It's a short description generator with a bit less of the "random" that most have. It allows you to set certain things about your char, and then generate descriptions based on those concrete properties, mixed with other random ones. It also allows you to generate multiple descriptions at a time, so you can get some ideas to mix and match from.(Also, a big thanks to the people who contributed to FW's Zalanthan Color Chart (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,38103.0.html) thread, from which I borrowed heavily for descriptive words!)

Limited Char Text EditorThis is a web-based (ASP .NET) version of the text editor below (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,47185.msg837909.html#msg837909), which allows you to edit text without installing or running it on your computer. It works a tiny bit differently than the one above, but I think it should still get the job done.

Enviro Tracker ClockThis is a graphical Armageddon game time clock, which can be set to run with different image modes, for a little more thematic feeling time system. Also, based on RGS's constant reminders, I included a feature which allows you to have the clock tell you when your timed eligibility to vote on MUD ranking sites renews.(http://www.techmeister.net/steve/Armageddon/LogoAnimated.gif)

Visual Status PanelThis is a graphical Armageddon health/status paenl, which can be set to run with different image modes, for a little more thematic feeling info system. Also includes the clock and voting reminders, as well as a clan pay timer. I will eventually make a page for it on the tools website when it is complete, but for now, you can access it here:http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49750.0.html (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49750.0.html)

Log Item IndexerThis is a utility that will crawl through your log folder and try to extract the descriptions of all the items you've ever seen in game. As it says on the page, the idea here is not to make your next character a master merchant overnight, but just to help you plan item sets for your characters, and help us get more use out of the crazy tons of items that already exist in game that get forgotten about. It includes some helpful features like color, type, and price categorization.

MUSHclient TransparencyThis is just a quick tutorial to walk you through adding window transparency to MUSHclient, in case you want to use the Large image setting of the Enviro Tracker clock as a background to your MUD window.

Finally, just a quick note, for the utilities that require install, your antivirus software may tell you that the program is suspicious. The reason for this is just because the publisher (ie Me) is not recognized. Don't forget there is more detail about each tool on its individual page, including instructions!

Main link again:

The Armageddon Tools Page (http://armageddontools.searchlightsj.com/)

Enjoy!

And again, just to maintain visibility, since I'm posting a ton of stuff right now:

I've used Daklyn's Character Descriptors (http://web.archive.org/web/20010803151936/http://www.ci-n.com/~darklyn/armageddon/char.html#otherlight) just about every time I've made a character since the late 90's. It went dark about 2002 but thanks to the wayback machine it is still accessible!

Thanks for the awesome text editor, James. But is it Mac and Linux friendly (without WINE)?

No, sorry. It's a Windows Forms application, so it will probably require Mono or Wine (but should theoretically work with one or the other).

I toyed around with converting one of the other tools I wrote (the sDesc generator) to ASP .NET, so I could run it as a web app, but precompiling seems to be unavailable, and I think I only have FTP access to my host, so installing could be tricky. If I could figure that out, I'm sure I could port this as well.

Since several people expressed interest in one, I decided to write a limited char line text editor.

It can be found -here- (http://www.techmeister.net/steve/Armageddon/LimitedCharLineTextEditor.zip).

It isn't perfect. Still not perfect, but I uploaded a new version with the button problem FIXED.

It should correctly insert line breaks if you are simply typing in it, and you will see that you can adjust the length of the line, as well as the length of the page if you wish to enter more than one ascii "page" at once. It also has the tilde (~) as a disallowed character so that you will not accidentally put one in the middle of your text, as that will close the IG editor.

Finally, copying and pasting into the form, or editing in the middle of an existing line is not terribly functional. The program has trouble tracking which line breaks are the user's, and which it's own. What I have done is put two buttons at the bottom of the form. One will manually edit your entire text to have no user line breaks whatsoever. The other will keep line breaks that are in pairs, or followed by an indentation of at least three spaces. Any others will be overwritten in the mass format. I will probably try to post a new version tomorrow without the errors. Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Otherwise, hope it works for you!

P.S. Depending on your telnet client, copying from the program and pasting into your client may result in empty carriage returns being removed. Not much I can do about that.

Pasted text from the website, and the same text after formatting with line breaks.(http://www.techmeister.net/steve/Armageddon/PastedText.png)(http://www.techmeister.net/steve/Armageddon/FormattedText.png)

Edited to rearrange post order, and put the important info at the top of the thread.

Awesome! If you'd like a word list for your sdesc generator, let me know. I tend to unload all the ones I've seen into an excel file for when I can't come up with ideas on my own. At this point it has 805 unique descriptors.

Awesome! If you'd like a word list for your sdesc generator, let me know. I tend to unload all the ones I've seen into an excel file for when I can't come up with ideas on my own. At this point it has 805 unique descriptors.

Absolutely I would!

This sDesc generator can theoretically do somewhere in the realm of 91 million unique sDescs, but you would be amazed how much you can add to that number with just one new adjective!

(P.S. I purposely removed all animal colors from my color lists. I didn't want "the beetle-haired man" to have an accident because of an adjective he got from me!)

Heh, yeah, I thought about that, but the way it's set up right now, it would have to basically generate an sDesc, determine it was too long, then generate a new second term blind, check again, ad infinitum. Maybe I can set it up to create a subset of the possible second-term adjectives from only terms that will keep the full sDesc under 35 chars. That would be way more reliable, and probably not that hard.

I'd like to see less eyes in the sdesc generator. I happen to dislike eyed descriptions and will do so until they stop that whole 'the headless body of the blah blah blahtety blah blah eyed man is here", since you can't see that without the head. Or that whole how can you see their eyes when they're passed out thing. I digress.

The tutorial is awesome. Might even show it to #4 so he can sneak peeks at it on the downlow.

Title: Re: Armageddon Player Tools and Utilities
Post by: James de Monet on August 19, 2014, 04:56:50 AM

For just such a preference, I put a selection option in each drop down box that says "Do Not Use". If you select that option for a trait you don't want to see, like eye color (currently only colors are used to describe eyes - hair has styles and skin is somewhat referenced by overall appearance), none will show up!

Never understood why it doesn't just say "a decapitated body," or some such. If they feel the need for more descriptors, they can pull from height and weight stats to generate something generic, such as: "the decapitated body of a tall, thin figure."(actually not sure what the best word to use there would be, as you probably can't tell half-elf from elf from human on the body alone).

I like full sdesc beheaded corpses, even if it can get awkward at times. If you find the body of the notorious dick-tattooed bandit, I think you want to be sure you've found the body of the notorious dick-tattooed bandit.

Hey James de Monet, I love your limited char text editor! Just wanted to let you know that if you go over the character limit, it gives you a nasty-looking code error. Maybe you could put in a warning that you've gone over the allotted amount of characters, or cut it off, or whatever it is you intended, but as it stands I could see someone not figuring out what happened when they get redirected to a scary error page.

Title: Re: Armageddon Player Tools and Utilities
Post by: James de Monet on August 21, 2014, 05:10:31 PM

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I noticed some weird behavior on my end, but it just refused to limit the length, it didn't pop up an unhandled exception. I assume you mean the web based version? I wonder if it's browser dependent.

I'll take a look at it. I have a couple fixes to make in the tutorial, too (like the error that appears if you try to enter blank text).

Lemme know if you guys see anything else!

Title: Re: Armageddon Player Tools and Utilities
Post by: James de Monet on August 25, 2014, 03:05:37 PM

Okay, I implemented a couple of fixes:

Corrected the video in the tutorial to refer to the correct side of the screen

Added some more highlighting to the tutorial videos for new player clarity

Fixed the blank text entry bug in the tutorial

Made the max page length feature in the text editor truncate correctly

Added a ton of descriptive words to the sDesc generator

Added a "force term agreement" box to the sDesc generator (not using it will allow you to see certain terms more frequently, but you might get 'the scrawny, huge-breasted male dwarf' for example)

Beethoven, I hope this will fix the problem you were seeing. Lemme know!

I would also like to point out that due to Valeria's diligence in tracking all of your lexical creativity, I was able to increase the number of raw descriptive words from 300 some to 700 some, which gives us an increase of total adjective terms from 4800 to 8000, for a final increase in possible unique sDescs from 91 million to 449 million! 8)

Title: Re: Armageddon Player Tools and Utilities
Post by: James de Monet on August 25, 2014, 03:24:09 PM

Also, although the poll seemed to find that recycling any sDesc term was fine, I steered away from those that seemed hyper-memorable (there weren't a ton), along with some that seemed a leetle too subjective, even if they did somehow slip through once before.

Finally, you may note that the generator doesn't currently produce any sDescs terms for facial hair. It didn't fit cleanly into the current algorithm, but maybe in the next update. We'll see.

Enjoy!

(P.S. Staff, if you see any terms in the generator that you would rather not see propagated IG, lemme know and I can take them out! There are a couple that are borderline, IMO, but they've been seen frequently enough to suggest acceptability.)

I would also consider that not every sdesc must contain two descriptive elements.

Title: Re: Armageddon Player Tools and Utilities
Post by: James de Monet on August 25, 2014, 03:54:39 PM

Good eye. I don't even remember putting lad and lass in there. But giantess is banned? And breed? When did that happen?

There goes my dream of having "the effeminate, stumpy stump".

And yeah, true about having two adjectives. The generator will occasionally only give one if if can't find a second match based on your choices, but I didn't see any reason to generate them with one intentionally. After all, you can just pick one if you see one word you like. Or mix and match. It's really more just to give you ideas. Would you prefer it it gave one adjective descs sometimes (or three if they could fit)?

Edit: Nevermind, I found the "sDes words" helpfile. Man, that thing was kinda buried. Cool. Some in there I haven't implemented to balance out the ones I have to remove.

That word list is interesting. I've seen 14 PC lasses and 3 PC lads in game, including some recently. As well as a -giantess. I suspect the word list is not very well enforced.

When SDESCs are approved with 'rainbow' in them, no, not very well enforced. Nice tool though, JDM.

There's nothing wrong with the word 'rainbow' in an sdesc/mdesc. It's the same reason we'd allow terms like 'steely-eyed' or 'icy blue'. There's a difference between a thing existing in Zalanthas and being a suitable term for IC speech, and a thing existing in the English language, which is the medium we use to interact with the game and each other and describe things.

Now, where it gets tricky is where something exists in both Earth and Zalanthas, but is different between the two; for example, the sky. Is the correct term 'sky blue', or 'sky red'? Here I think we typically defer to the Zalanthan definition to keep up a greater sense of immersion inside the game. I typically edit measurements in descriptions from feet/yards/meters and kilograms to cords and ten-stones, for the same reason.

Now, where it gets tricky is where something exists in both Earth and Zalanthas, but is different between the two; for example, the sky. Is the correct term 'sky blue', or 'sky red'?

Tangent: I love "sky red" so much. I love every item that is desced that way, and I love PCs with "sky-haired" or whatever in their sdescs. I think it's the juxtaposition, the shattered expectation of what color the sky is that's inherent in the term, that makes it so immersive. I wish there were more terms like it.

Title: Re: Armageddon Player Tools and Utilities
Post by: James de Monet on August 28, 2014, 06:33:36 PM

Tangent: I love "sky red" so much. I love every item that is desced that way, and I love PCs with "sky-haired" or whatever in their sdescs. I think it's the juxtaposition, the shattered expectation of what color the sky is that's inherent in the term, that makes it so immersive. I wish there were more terms like it.

One could argue that "earth-toned" in Zalanthas would actually mean the color of sand, since brown soil is far less common of a ground covering. Could probably also work "sea-grey" as opposed to earth's "sea-green". Maybe also "wine-blue" for things like kalan wine.

James, my newest lappy doesn't like the zipfile. Do you have anything else?

Of the text editor, you mean? Thereís a web-based version (http://armageddontools.searchlightsj.com/ArmageddonTools/LimitedCharLineEditor.aspx), if that works for you. Itís a little buggy (for example, it just barfs if you go over 2000 characters, rather than cropping nicely) but I still use it for bios, mDescs, and books.